Molding of various polymers and composite materials is a common method used to create parts for various applications. Traditionally, autoclave, out-of-autoclave, or compression molding approaches are used in molding composite materials. Typically, in these processes material/component transport to various stations is largely manual.
Composite materials are moldable in an autoclave process typically through use of a one-sided tool where the material sheet or pre-form is placed over the one-sided tool and then heated in an autoclave under pressure or vacuum that causes the perform to mold into a desired shape. The overall process is very slow and expensive to carry out since the steps of forming the material in an autoclave and using high heat and pressure significantly increases the production time and energy costs for creating the molded part and does not provide process scalability for higher volumes. It is therefore desirable to develop other molding arrangements for high volume production of structural automotive parts, preferably, having a Class A finish, e.g., vehicle hood liner, or any other structural part. Typical out-of-autoclave processing, e.g., where a closed mold is heated under vacuum, does not achieve appreciable results over autoclave processing. The materials are also generally moldable in a compression molding process, however, this is inefficient, increases costs, and does not provide process scalability for higher volume.
In addition, use of pre-impregnated sheets for forming molded parts has been done in the past. The pre-impregnated material used generally has high strength due to the presence of fibers within the pre-impregnated sheet that is used for forming a desired part. Traditionally, pre-impregnated materials are molded in the aforementioned processes. However, material handling of material such as carbon fiber pre-impregnated with epoxy material (could be different fibers such as Kevlar, glass, bassalt, etc. or resins such as vinyl ester, poly ester, PA6, PA66, etc.) is difficult as this material “sticks” to many surfaces due to an affinity to mating contact surface and/or Van Der Waal forces which makes release difficult. It is therefore desirable to develop a tooling/molding system and method for pre-impregnated material and preform material processing.
Accordingly, there exists a need for a method of producing parts and a tooling/molding arrangement for material handling of the material and placement into a compression molding tool for higher volume production of parts. It is also desirable to develop a tooling/molding system and method that automates material handling of the material and places into a compression molding tool. Thus, it is further desirable to fully automate a typically manual process.